A/N:
Thanks for tagging along, and thank you VigoGrimborne for being my beta buddy! And if you, dear reader, feel inspired to leave a comment (or already have), THANK YOU SO MUCH! I love to hear the thoughts of this talent-riddled community!

Dragonrider's Fury, Yeah, sorry the time skips jerked you around so much. Thanks to your comments, I went back over chapter 8 with a fine-tooth comb to smooth things out a little more. Oh, and if you already hate Grimmel, you're about to hate him even more, but Frost might get exonerated in your eyes.

Deadly-Bagel, thanks for sharing your thoughts! While I'd like to think I could avoid cues in my story like, "Before the battle…" if I'd thought of that from the start, I might have actually done it.


Misguided

Hiccup jumped off the edge of a sea stack, plunging towards the icy water below. He reached down by his ankles and grabbed a ring in each hand, yanking up to deploy his suit's "wings" – a recent invention inspired by Tuffnut's kites. They were hardly more than a couple triangles of thin leather between his outstretched arms and legs, not enough to fly, and one would have to be squinting hard and thoroughly intoxicated to even consider it "gliding".

He lost his orientation in the whipping wind of the storm and remembered to slap a small pressure plate on his chest that released a spring-loaded dorsal fin. It helped… enough.

A quick look behind him revealed that the Deathgrippers were streaking after him, outlined for an instant by a flash of lightning, wings folded, diving to catch or kill him, he didn't know which. He considered pulling in his wings to fall faster – he could out-fall any dragon if he angled himself right – but smacking into the choppy waves would be deadly at worst and put himself in a terrible situation at best. No, best to continue gliding to give Toothless time to act.

Toothless was right on the tail of one of the Deathgrippers – literally – biting for grip, digging his claws in so he could leap forward to the one in front. The lead Deathgripper was catching up, claws outstretched, closer, closer–

Hiccup had some maneuverability, limited as it was, so he feigned a turn to the left before actually committing to yanking himself hard to the right, his shoulders and sides burning in protest. It was enough, barely, but the DeathGripper was already correcting his course, angling in to intercept, ready this time in preparation for another fakeout.

His head served as a platform for Toothless to land on and jump off of to grab his rider in his front paws.

The DeathGrippers were trailing them, but Toothless was faster, even while carrying Hiccup below.

"Oh gods, I'm so glad that worked!" Hiccup shouted over the wind. "Thanks for the save! Can I get up on your back now?"

Toothless gave no response, flying mechanically, eyes ahead, not even acknowledging Hiccup's presence.

"Toothless?"

Still, no response. Hiccup squirmed, but the grip only tightened, pressing him against Toothless' chest.

Realization struck like a foul beast. Toothless was stung by a Deathgripper, Grimmel was giving him commands, and though Hiccup cut it short by jumping, that might have made no difference. Stormfly had left – at Hiccup's insistence – so he was deaf to anything the Deathgrippers were saying. In an instant of time, they could have given Toothless a lengthy list of complex commands to carry out. Grimmel could have been nothing more than a distraction.

"Toothless!" he frantically shouted, slapping at the dragon's leg, but that accomplished nothing.

"C'mon Toothless, I know you're in there!" Hiccup shouted, leaning forward. "Whatever they did to you, you're stronger! You gotta push through!"

Nothing, no response. All the dragon did was fly fervently towards Berk.

It was obvious what commands Toothless would have been given. Grab his rider, fly home, kill said rider in front of everyone, and then command all the dragons to fly off with him. He had enough sway that they would, at least most of them. Then Berk would be so much more vulnerable to the massive armada closing in, and everyone would be dismayed and confused by what was happening.

They knew nothing about Grimmel or his Deathgrippers. In their eyes, Toothless would have simply gone mad and betrayed his rider and tribe. Some Vikings might even manage to shoot him down and kill him. Berk would fall with little fight, then the rest of the Archipelago. With all remaining dragons at his beck and call, Grimmel would be the self-proclaimed ruler over everyone, another bloody smear of greedy indulgence in the pages of history.

"RAAAAAA!" Hiccup howled in frustration. "Toothless! TOOTHLESS!"

Nothing worked, nothing helped. It was too late for Toothless, at least for now. Hiccup thought about what he could shout out to his fellow Hooligans as Toothless landed to tear him limb-from-limb. No, Grimmel was smart, he was one to plan for contingencies, he would have considered that and worked some counter into his commands for Toothless. Maybe Toothless would simply drop Hiccup from high in the sky, or maybe slam him hard into the ground on landing to kill him instantly.

Hiccup slumped in his dragon's iron grip. He could feel his eyes tearing up, and not just from the gusting wind of flying through a storm. "It's not your fault, Bud. Whatever happens, I want you to know that it's not your fault. It's my fault. Suddenly, a female not-quite Night Fury appears out of nowhere, the timing should have made me suspicious."

He groaned. "It's so obvious now." He gave a pat to one of the front legs holding him. "Whatever happens, Bud, whatever you're made to do, know that it's not your fault. No matter what, I want you to know that I love–"

{I think it's safe to open up again. Let's get you on my back.} Toothless released Hiccup as he dove and spun to catch his rider on his back. He then turned his head around to glare sideways. {Do you realize just how close you came to dying back there?!}

He noticed the disbelief and shock in his rider's face, teetering on the precipice of crumbling into a babbling, incoherent mess, so he lowered his sensor lobes against his neck placatingly. {What did I miss?}

"TOOTHLESS!" Hiccup lunged forward, desperately clawing at his dragon's head. "TOOTHLESS! TOOTHLESS! OH GODS, YOU'RE ALRIGHT! I WAS SO–" He suddenly sat upright in thought and blinked the tears from his eyes. "Please tell me that Grimmel's commands to you didn't include assuring me that you're fine. Oh, but he could have commanded you to assure me that he did not command you to assure me that you're fine, and if I ask you about that, he could have commanded you to–"

Toothless whacked Hiccup's cheek with a sensor lobe. {No to all of that silly nonsense, but even though your plan worked, when we land, I'm still going to sit on you until you turn blue. He was a cat, and my mind was his mouse. He told me to grab you, and then you jumped, and that shocked me out of my stupor just enough to allow me to shut out everything else and fulfill that one command.}

"Oh…" Hiccup hadn't considered that when he jumped, that Toothless might not have been able to act were it not for the stroke of luck that the first part of Grimmel's command was to grab Hiccup. And he hadn't thought about whether Toothless would have been able to summon the presence of mind in that situation to block out all projected thoughts – something dragons could do and Hiccup wished he could do to other people. That explained why Toothless was so unresponsive for a while; he literally could not understand his rider.

"Oh, Toothless, it's so good to–"

{Brace! Hard left!} A purple fireball streaked through the space they had just occupied and exploded. Toothless wisely angled himself to let the shockwave push him higher.

Hiccup whipped his head around to see the Light Fury hot on their tail, Grimmel on her back, and all those Deathgrippers doing their best to catch up. Even though Hiccup was pressing himself against Toothless' back, Frost was closing the gap. Toothless' left tailfin was mostly developed but still a tad undersized, and Frost was a fast flier in the first place.

{I mean, in hindsight, I shouldn't have been surprised that you just jumped off the edge with only blind faith that it would all somehow work out. You're Firefly after all! I should save my surprised feelings for when you do something rational and safe. It's a marvel I haven't lost all my scales from worry!}

"Maybe later?" Hiccup grunted as they twirled around to dodge another fireball.

Frost pulled up next to them.

"You're making this more difficult than it needs to be!" Grimmel shouted over the cutting wind.

"You're right, we're not worth the trouble!" Hiccup shot back.

Grimmel started to bring his left arm up, one finger hooked through a loop–

Toothless shot a small fireball that came out almost instantly, and Frost was forced to jerk to the side to protect her rider, drawing a shout from him as he flailed for balance.

"Steady!" Grimmel shouted at Frost as he worked with what seemed to be some sort of wrist-mounted crossbow. Toothless knew that he couldn't outfly Frost, so he pressed the offensive, shooting fireballs at her to hamper them. Frost fired back, forcing Toothless to spin and weave, but that only allowed the Deathgrippers to gain on them.

Up and up they flew, whirling around, firing back and forth through the stormy clouds. Grimmel managed to get a dart loaded into his crossbow, but he was given no opportunity to aim a shot. This wasn't working, and Hiccup and Toothless both knew it. They could stall for only so long, and the Deathgrippers were closing in, and Frost was giving them no chance at all to knock Grimmel off her back.

The more Hiccup thought about it, the more he realized that Grimmel needed to capture him alive. When he had jumped off the edge of the sea stack, the Deathgrippers could have focused on stopping Toothless so that Hiccup would die in the unforgiving sea below. No, instead, they dove after Hiccup, focused on catching him, a live captive instead of a dead corpse.

As for why, he had a guess. Grimmel had explained – a bad habit that crazy madmen with world domination aspirations really should quit – that he wanted to establish human-only and dragon-only areas in this world, and who better to do that than the one who had brought them together? With Hiccup alive, those he loved could be threatened to ensure his compliance, or he could be killed in front of everyone by his own dragon – and what a betrayal by dragons that would look like. Either way, Toothless was either a hindrance or a tool to be used in Grimmel's eyes, but it was Hiccup that he really needed.

A deafening lightning bolt struck, jumping from cloud to cloud, alarmingly close.

Inspiration struck, a half-baked idea forming in his mind. It was bold. It was crazy. It would drive Toothless insane.

Sacrifices had to be made!

"Such a stormy night!" Hiccup hollered at his dragon over the cutting wind. "Wonder what'd happen if we got hit by lightning?"

Toothless huffed at that. {I think we both know the answer to that. You land-striders are far from fireproof. Also, know that Frost is relaying everything we say to that crazy land-strider.}

"Hey, I represent that statement!" Hiccup shouted with a wide grin.

Grimmel stared at them through the twists and lunges, clearly trying to decipher what that code talk could mean.

Good! He seemed to have learned everything he could about Berk, including how Toothless was entombed in ice by Drago's Bewilderbeast before he broke free and gave the Bewilderbeast a fiery smackdown. What Grimmel could not have known, though, was what happened in that icy tomb, when a certain god of thunder paid a visit to give a little gift to the offspring of lightning and death.

It was the only explanation for an impossible feat that Hiccup once saw the Night Fury perform in absorbing lightning to instantly jump – like a black lightning bolt – to strike at an immediate threat to his rider. Even if Frost knew what Toothless was capable of, unless Grimmel knew to ask, she would have had no reason to share it with him.

Toothless drove his wings down hard to lunge for Frost. He got pretty close, but she let off a small fireball that Toothless easily took to the chest. The force knocked him around, and Hiccup was thrown from his dragon's back screaming – best to play it safe and make it look like an accident.

As predicted, Grimmel commanded Frost to give chase and they dove, Grimmel pressed down low, Frost's wings folded tight. Hiccup was flailing in the air so they were able to catch up, slowly but surely, but Toothless would be hopeless in attempting to catch up – or so Grimmel thought. The Deathgrippers were drawing closer, but there was no way they could make it in time to catch Hiccup, not quite.

Above, lightning flashed and flickered, lightning up the sky. In a flash of purple fire and smoke, Toothless was there, right on top of Frost. She spun to protect her rider, but Grimmel was still thrown off from the hard impact. With the upper hand, at least for the moment, Toothless was able to shift around and leap off of Frost's chest towards Hiccup, claws outstretched to grab him.

The Night Fury roared as something bit into his shoulder, and Hiccup could see that annoying wide grin on Grimmel's face as he fell, eying the empty crossbow on his arm that was leveled at the dragon. Hiccup instantly reached around to flick the dart away, but it was too late. He could see the vitality whiff away in Toothless' eyes as he fell to the effects of the sedative.

Everything fell apart. Hiccup knew he was alone. The Deathgrippers were still a little too far away to catch anyone, and Hiccup knew that he had no tricks up his sleeve against Grimmel and Frost. Grimmel would get him, and Toothless would die in the waves below.

"Save us!" Grimmel called out to Frost.

"Save Toothless!" Hiccup pleaded with her. "He doesn't deserve to die!" He would happily die knowing Toothless was safe, but he could never live with himself if he cost his dear friend his life.

For the briefest instant, she hesitated. She really did like Toothless, that was clear, but she was beholden to Grimmel. Hiccup could see the war behind her eyes as she tried to hammer a square peg into a round hole.

She acted quickly and decisively, snagging Hiccup and Grimmel with her claws and driving her wings through two hard flaps to fling them forward – straight at the Deathgrippers – before flaring her wings to shoot back with reckless haste towards Toothless' listless body.

"Haha! Clever girl!" Hiccup crowed as he watched her shoot off.

He then looked just in time to see Grimmel's fist drive into his stomach. It hurt a little, but without a ground to push off of, there wasn't much impact despite the effort. Hiccup pulled out his belt knife, but a frantic slash was met with iron fingers gripping his wrist and the side of a hand hitting the inside of his elbow to send the knife flying.

Grimmel clawed at Hiccup, grabbing whatever he could and savagely tearing it away, and that thing happened to be one of Hiccup's "wings" – inconsequential when he couldn't outfly the Deathgrippers

He grabbed Grimmel's flapping cloak and pulled hard in a surprise maneuver to shoot in close to land a disorienting, open-palmed slap on the head. With that brief reprieve, he flipped around to the back, completely at ease in free-fall. Wrestling in the air was something that Astrid allowed – well, forced – Hiccup to do with her, just another martial arts skill she wanted to master. Free-fall actually put Hiccup on a level playing field, and the things she promised to do for him whenever he won a bout with her, the things she did that night after that one time he got her in a headlock high in the sky and she had to concede… Some things in life sound like such a great idea in concept…

The inexperienced Grimmel was no match, kicking against nothing, clawing at Hiccup's arm that was wrapped around his neck. Hiccup's hand gripped the elbow of his free arm, and he pulled back even harder to squeeze the life out of this maniac who dared to threaten – and almost did kill – Toothless.

"My son puts up more of a fight than you in free-fall!" Hiccup grunted as he hardened himself to the fact that he was choking the life out of his enemy. Thinking about his family made it easier to accept.

Something large slammed Hiccup aside, and he found himself ensnared in scales and claws. He could see that Grimmel landed on the back of another Deathgripper, frantically hacking through strained breaths and rubbing at his throat.

"Uh, my, what big claws you have there, big guy." Hiccup nervously said.

The mental projections of the Deathgripper – a female, he could tell – drifted in, and they felt dark, unfeeling, and sinister. {You are wise not to struggle, Firefly. I have no patience for your games.}

The dragon landed hard on the beach of an island that Hiccup recognized to be a short flight from Berk, spraying sand everywhere, where she unceremoniously dumped him on the ground. He tried to stumble away, but two more Deathgrippers slammed down in front of him, impaling the beach on either side with their long, sword-like claws.

"Thank you for resisting the temptation to kill him yet, I know it's not easy," Grimmel called out to them. "I think some of you should go find Toothless and kill him before he can interfere. Eight should suffice."

The dragons snorted at that, affronted that he thought it would take so many.

Grimmel rolled his eyes. "Better safe than sorry. And keep an eye for any other dragons that might wander this way. Sting them and bring them here."

As several Deathgrippers flew off, Grimmel looked at Hiccup. "Really, Hiccup, you have only doomed yourself with your theatrics. My initial plan involved allowing you to live a peaceful life, but now… The sixth commandment given by my God is that thou shall not murder, but you leave me with no other choice, since the second says to eschew idolatry. That's basically what you are, after all, a golden idol that tempts people to drift away from the Lord."

He turned to the remaining Deathgrippers – Hiccup counted nine. "As I was saying, he has developed a sort of messiah complex in these parts. I must ask for a little more patience. My lord was killed a thousand years ago, and those faithful to him rose up and took his place to carry out his works. If we kill Hiccup now, well, it'd be an insult to compare him to Christ, but the death of such a martyr will only make them more resilient against us. Humans are funny like that. What we need is for Hiccup to be killed by a dragon that his people respect, so unless any of you have recently saved the Hooligans from a Red Death or Bewilderbeast sometime recently…"

His eyes snapped up as Frost delicately landed with a pounce and a trot. "Ah, speak of the scapegoat, and she will appear! Sting her, please. The Night Fury's whore has developed a following on Berk. She can kill Hiccup, then fly back and show her deeds to all. It's not as good as having Toothless kill him…"

He drifted off in thought. "No, better safe than sorry. This should suffice." He smiled at Hiccup. "There's a certain poetry to using the talents of your dragon whisperers against them."

He gestured at the ground. "On your stomach now, I won't have you interfering again."

"You're a sick, sick ma–" Hiccup lost his wind as a fist drove hard into his stomach, sending him collapsing and wheezing. Warm scales pressed him into the sand, almost suffocating him.

"Forgive me, Lord, but that did feel good," he could hear Grimmel's voice, muffled through the scaly hide pressing around his head. "Now, my dear Light Fury, or it seems they've taken to calling you Frost. You will kill Hiccup. You will rip his limbs off one by one, and you will bite off his head, and you will dig out his heart and eat it. And you will like it more than anything else! Then you will take all those pieces of him and drop them in the village square on Berk, and show everyone what you did to him. Tell nothing about me or the Deathgrippers. Let them believe you acted on your own free will. You have your orders, now carry them out."

The Deathgripper laying on Hiccup stood and took a step back. Hiccup scrambled to his hands and knees and gulped as Frost coldly stared at him, slowly prowling forward. He had noticed something peculiar about Grimmel's commands for Frost. It was a long shot, but maybe, just maybe…

"Hey, there, Frost," he nervously said. "I know this isn't the real you, and I want you to know that I don't blame you for anything."

Frost tensed, and Hiccup braced himself.

She leaped. A handful of sand thrown at her and a tumble to the side was his response.

She roared in frustration, and he used that moment to lunge at the Deathgripper behind him with another handful of sand – all good tricks were worth an encore. With the dragon distracted, he weaved around the deadly claws and landed a punch as hard as he could on the bottom of the neck before leaping and tumbling clear of the wild thrashing.

The Deathgripper blinked her eyes clear and howled at Hiccup, lunging forward to kill him–

Frost impacted the Deathgripper's side, tearing a meaty chunk from her neck. Hiccup knew that Frost – the real Frost – was really on his side, and that it was only the venom that was making her try to kill him. But that was the catch. Dragons were very literal creatures. Grimmel's command made it so that allowing Hiccup to die was not enough.

She had to kill him, and she couldn't do that if a Deathgripper did that first.

Hiccup wasted no time in sprinting from the grappling dragons, ignoring the lightning bolts of pain shooting through his stump with every frantic stride as he lunged at another nearby Deathgripper. The dragon reacted to such a hostile move as any other dragon would, and Frost took strong exception to that, clearing the distance in a single graceful leap.

Two more Deathgrippers charged in to help their friend, not yet having figured it out.

That was a mistake. That was a deadly mistake.

Hiccup stumbled away from the tangle, eyes fixed on them despite his need to move on. He simply couldn't peel his stunned gaze away from Frost as she leapt from dragon to dragon, elegant and graceful beyond all comparison, deftly twisting around claws and spines, rending and tearing in retort, furious and brutal and agile and precise… and… beautiful.

Hiccup felt deeply conflicted.

With great effort, he hastily jerked his eyes away from the massacre and stumbled towards the nearest – living – Deathgripper.

"Up, you fools!" Grimmel shouted out to them. "Up and away!"

The next Deathgripper Hiccup tried to target was backing away quickly, jumping and spreading his wings. In the distance, the sky lit up with a bright lightning bolt and a loud crack of thunder following after. Then another. And another. A sustained pulsing of white light lit the clouds. Hiccup knew the signs of a Skrill, and for once, it brought him hope.

One of the Deathgrippers from that tangle with Frost was flying away, howling in pain and bleeding heavily. Another was crawling, dragging his limp, blood-soaked body along. The other two were writhing impotently on the ground behind Frost, who was staring at Hiccup, coiling her haunches to leap.

"Wait, they might still steal–"

It was too late. Claws tore into his sides. The world went dark as two rows of teeth engulfed his head and bit down on his neck.

Hiccup thrashed, all was dark, and cold, and sweaty.

"Hiccup!" some female shouted, a Valkyrie from beyond the gates of Valhalla, or maybe Freya from the shores of Folkvang. "Wake up!"

Hiccup pushed through the dark fog in his mind and willed his crusted eyes to open. His mouth was parched. Toothless was whining–

Reality slammed into him like a falling boulder. He forced his eyes open to behold his Valkyrie – or Astrid. It was only a dream.

A large, wet tongue dragged over Hiccup's face over and over again, unapologetically slobbery. {I was showing Zealot your dream, Firefly. She wanted me to let you sleep. You know how your land-strider dreams can be, how they can sometimes reveal something other than how to torture your dragon by unknowingly projecting them.} Dreaming was a foreign concept to dragons who lacked imagination, so it was always strange to pick up the dreams of a human.

Hiccup panted and felt around at his head, his neck, his sides that were not torn to shreds. "Frost!" he frantically croaked.

"Still locked up, under constant watch, still calm in her stone cell." Astrid batted Toothless' tongue away and pressed her lips into Hiccup's for a moment, an impressive feat since she had whisked up Jorunn from her crib next to them. "Was only a nightmare. Shh, calm down."

Hiccup went completely slack against the nest of furs, his sides cramped from his spasming straight out of a deep sleep. "No," he grumbled groggily, "I mean I know how to fix her, now. Gods, how did I not see it before?"

Toothless' lobes pricked up and Astrid stared at him, but Hiccup flopped a hand like a fish in a half-hearted attempt to wave them off before they got too excited.

"Deathgrippers." He swallowed, his mouth was so dry. "We have two locked up…"

"Ohhhhhh."

Toothless crooned and gave a long lick from Hiccup's chin to his forehead, causing him to splutter on the saliva.

"ACTHPT!" Hiccup rubbed at his throbbing temple. "Morning. Nothing we can do tonight." This certainly wasn't something to try when everyone was sleeping, and it involved quite a few moving parts anyway. And dashing off to try some hair-brained idea with potentially dangerous dragons without at least running it past the council wasn't something a good chief would do.

Gods, I sound like my father! he thought to himself.

Toothless started gnawing on Hiccup's temples with toothless gums, drawing out a contented sigh. Stormfly's one-year-old hatchlings and Surf got up, stretching out their legs and wings, offering licks and nibbles for each other, a communal preening. Nuffink and Zephyr mumbled and stubbornly curled up tighter to try to go back to sleep.

Hiccup hobbled to the table nearby, moving without his prosthetic foot, fumbling for the kettle. Light flared from Toothless' mouth, bright and blue, and the hearth jumped to orange life.

{I'll be patient and wait until the morning, and then let you do your Firefly thing, but I demand to know why would you dreamed about Frost killing you? You know I got there in time to stop her!}

Toothless was right. The Deathgrippers that had been sent to kill him had encountered Striker, who was very excited to get to kill some dragons that night, eagerly dispensing large bolts of lightning as quickly as he could absorb them from the storm. Toothless was recovering from the effects of the sedative, and Striker was confused when told to shoot lightning into him in a constant stream.

It worked, though. Through mechanisms that Hiccup had given up trying to comprehend, with lightning flowing over and around the rage-filled Night Fury, a flash of purple fire and smoke landed Toothless on top of Frost. He took advantage of her tunnel vision on Hiccup to catch her by surprise and knock her out by smacking her head against a large rock. Grimmel was actually killed by one of his Deathgrippers when they realized that his plan had completely fallen apart and he had – unwittingly – gotten several of them killed. With more dragons coming, the few survivors were not keen on sticking around.

"Aside from the whole dying bit, how much of that was accurate?" Astrid asked.

"You mean Grimmel talking his head off, and me jumping off that sea stack, and how you forcing me to wrestle with you in free-fall all those times actually accomplished something?"

Astrid smirked at that.

"In other news, the frozen shores of Hel have melted," he couldn't help but jab at her. Who would have imagined that weightless wrestling would have any payoff ever?

Astrid stared at Hiccup with a silent intensity that made him squirm. He sipped his water, but that feral look did not leave her eyes.

"There are so many things I want to do to you, you crazy man," she smoothly said.

"Uhhh," Hiccup stuttered, "like punch me in the shoulder for those insane risks I took?"

Astrid frowned at that. "I have no right to judge you there after…" she trailed off.

Right, Stormfly. While Hiccup was dealing with Grimmel, Stormfly was on Berk, choking on her own blood, dying to protect those she loved.

Hiccup licked his lips and went to wrap his arms around her. "Astrid, I'm–"

"Nope!" Astrid held up a hand. "I'm not going down that path, not again, and I'm not allowing you to either. A feral grin worked its way over her face. "I know some things I will do with you, though."

Realization dawned. Though this urge was spur-of-the-moment, he knew that it was important to her that she accept what happened and move on, at least by all outward appearances, and it would help her to burn up her feelings on him. He also lost people who were close to him, good friends whose loss seemed impossible to accept, but if Astrid could force herself to move on instead of moping over Stormfly forever…

Hiccup gulped. He thought back to what Astrid did to him that one time he won a weightless wrestling match with her, and, well, while it wasn't against Astrid, he technically did get a second win.

"And you do realize we have company," he added.

The door swung open and Valka walked in with a yawn to take Jorunn from Astrid. "Who wants to go troll hunting?"

Nuffink and Zephyr suddenly weren't tired anymore and were almost instantly in their boots and out the door. It was still pitch black outside.

Astrid stalked a step forward. "Better?"

"But the dragons!"

Toothless hid his head behind a wing, and Hiccup could sense him smirking.

Astrid stalked a step closer.

"But the hatchlings are only a year old!" he wailed, slowly edging towards the door.

"You know how dragons are." She had a point. Privacy and decency were foreign concepts to them.

"And this could be very educational," she added with a smarmy grin at the shocked reaction she knew she'd get.

"But… But…"

"And the reaction you had to Frost's rampage is making me feel a little threatened. Did her little demonstration really give–"

"Astrid!"

Astrid lunged forward to grab HIccup's wrist, and he suddenly found himself on his back on the pile of furs that served as their bed, with Astrid nibbling on his neck hard enough to make him squirm and whine. Toothless tried to suppress his chortle.

Hiccup took the offensive, twisting around Astrid's attempts to hold him. He too had frustrations to burn up on her.

Both of them would be walking a little funny in the morning.

########


########

Something woke Hiccup, and he did not appreciate it.

"Mrrrrgh." He yawned. "Not yet, I'm still–"

{Firefly, Zealot, wake up now!}

"What is it?" Astrid asked, her battle-ready spirit zapping her awake instantly. Hiccup knew that she was just as sore and weary as him, and they definitely didn't sleep enough to recover. Maybe a week would be enough. Besides, it was probably nothing to be worried about–

Imagery flashed in from Toothless, relayed from the Nadder who saw it, a jagged cliff face, a Skrill on top, stormy weather, lightning– Nuffink!

Astrid practically flew out the door, barely taking an instant to stomp into her boots and snag her coat to clad her bare body on the way out, hot on the tail of Toothless, who spread his wings–

"Toothless, wait. Hiccup!" Astrid shouted, frantically looking back at her husband who was fumbling with his prosthetic.

Hiccup saw his dragon dash back in with an abashed look and made a one-legged lunge to don his coat before being scooped up. "Watch my head," he warned as he ducked low and they moved outside into the wind and rain to take off in flight, Astrid sprinting below. Surf chirped loudly and landed by her, and the two were airborne an instant later.

Lightning lit up the sky.

Without any prompt, Hiccup was already receiving a stream of impressions from Toothless, mercifully trimmed down to snippets and delivered at a rate much slower than they were received so that his mind didn't feel queasy from sensory overload. He saw through the eyes of a young Nadder, watching from a distance as she was afraid to approach – and rightfully so for a one year old hatchling. Nuffink was hanging from the mouth of a Skrill – Striker – his tunic clenched in a bite. The perspective shifted as Striker himself projected his senses, a measure of appeasement, as he gently landed on the bluff at the base of the rocky wall.

Toothless plummeted down into the muddy ground to confront Striker, and at the same time, Firebrand came streaking in from a different angle, catching up to a human who was sprinting in on the ground – Ragnar, or going by his less-than-flattering dragon name, Twitchy. Surf inelegantly slammed into the ground at high speed, and Astrid continued the motion to leap down at a frantic sprint towards Striker. Cloudjumper touched down and Valka hopped off in a sprint to join Astrid.

Striker looked left, right, balking at the sight of so many worried, fearful, angry dragons and humans all around. Lightning flashed overhead, loud and close, and his wingtips and tail sparked, but that was suppressed almost instantly.

"Striker, drop him now!" Astrid screeched, backed up by the dragons all demanding the same thing.

Striker looked at them all slowly, still gripping Nuffink, and his eyes rested on Toothless, who acted as a relay so his rider could hear. {I have not harmed him, and you do not want to fight me.}

"Striker! Now!" Astrid shouted, reaching for a sword or ax that she wasn't carrying. She grabbed a fist-sized rock from the ground and charged at the dragon, maternal instincts and warrior spirit finding a common path forward. Surf charged after her, tail bristling with venomous quills, wings half-unfurled and teeth bared.

"ASTRID, STOP!" Hiccup shouted, and – thank the gods – she did, two strides away from Striker. Toothless barked an order to Surf, who ground to a halt and used a wing to stop himself from falling forward, one eye on Striker and the other looking back at Toothless. Striker had his wings out, ready to either fight back or take off.

Toothless picked up on his rider's urge to approach, casually and at an angle instead of head-on to present themselves as non-threatening.

"Not helping," Hiccup said to Astrid as he drew near. He turned to the Skrill. "If you release Nuffink unharmed, I can promise you that I will not allow anyone to harm you. The worst we would do is make you leave us, but for all I know we could be overreacting." Probably not, he had no idea what was going through that dragon's mind, but if he felt safe, he was less liable to harm Nuffink.

Toothless grumbled. {Why didn't you simply start with that, Striker?}

Striker released Nuffink, who was standing there, crying, his posture stooped.

"Nuffink, come!" Astrid frantically shouted to him, and he complied, running and trying to swallow down his whimpers, arms outstretched, saying over and over, "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" All the dragons seemed to be relaxing, Striker included.

Hiccup breathed a sigh of relief that his son was safe, but he still had no clue what was going on here. Before he could ask, Toothless started to fill him in on what he had pieced together, a mosaic of impressions from several dragons, thoughtfully stitched together for his rider's sake.

Before all this drama, Valka and Cloudjumper had the kids out "troll hunting", which was really just teaching them how to recognize various plant life that might be troll food, harvest cordage for troll traps, and other such wilderness survival skills. They had run across Ragnar, accompanied by his usual entourage of dragons to keep an eye on him, who was out for a walk in the woods since he couldn't get any sleep.

They got to talking, with Valka keeping a wary eye, of course. Nuffink was inspired by Ragnar's tale of how he, an accomplished dragon hunter, had to admit that he was abnormally twitchy around Night Furies, but he overcame his fear by confronting one head-on… A slight embellishment as revealed by Firebrand.

Still, though Nuffink kept it to himself, he couldn't help but think about how Striker made him fearful – he had learned about that close call, years ago, when Striker almost accidentally killed Toothless. He wanted to be brave, just like Ragnar.

When the weather turned stormy, Valka had everyone head back home. They were in no danger as they were well-dressed for anything, but while Zephyr held everyone's awed attention with her childish antics, Nuffink had slipped off to confront his fear.

He made it halfway up the jagged, nearly-vertical face, shouting, "I'm not afraid of you! I'm not afraid of you!" Striker was awoken from his sleep by this interloper, thank the gods, and he was able to nab him just as he lost his grip and started to fall. The boy suffered little more than scrapes and bruises, and Striker was surprised at how good it felt to help someone. He liked Nuffink, after all, having grown up with him. They were the same age.

That certainly changed everything in Hiccup's eyes. He jumped down from his dragon, but he forgot he was down half a leg and flopped to the grass below.

"Well, that was dignified," he grumbled as he got up.

Ragnar, noticing the shift of attention between Nuffink and himself, took a half step back in uncertainty. Though deaf to dragons, he was smart enough to figure out why their attention was on him. His example inspired Nuffink's stunt.

"Is this the part where I run for my life?" he asked, fingertips on the handle of his sword as he leaned back–

"No," Hiccup assured him, and he also noticed Firebrand giving a curt shake of his head. "That would just be making you a scapegoat. How cowardly would it be to hold you responsible for what others–"

"My fault," Valka mumbled, looking down. "He was under my care."

"No!"Astrid insisted, giving Valka a pat on the shoulder. "Mistakes happen, and no harm has come of it. He's my – our – son, and our responsibility, and this changes nothing."

Valka looked back towards the village. "Speaking of care, Mulch was nearby when I realized Nuffink was missing, and he and his dragon are watching over them. I should get back to them." With that, she hurried off.

"Thanks, Mom!" Hiccup called after her. He looked around at all the dragons. "We were very fortunate to have such friends who care so much."

His eyes landed on the Skrill. "Even you. Especially you, Striker. I'm sorry I doubted you."

He hobbled forward, Toothless keeping by his side to offer his snout for support, still keeping a wary eye on the Skrill.

"Hiccup!" Astrid called over, voice tight with worry. "What are you doing?!"

"I can't just leave things like this," he called back to her. "Surf, if you haven't already, please show Astrid what Toothless showed me."

He cleared the last few hops to stand in front of the Skrill. "Striker, I am a fool to have doubted you. I always said that Toothless wouldn't let me touch you ever since…"

He took a deep breath. His image of the Skrill changed that day, when Striker first absorbed lightning from a storm and almost killed Toothless, from an orphaned hatchling to something more dangerous and impendingly sinister.

"But, in all honesty, I was too scared to try to accept that you could change, and that made me a hypocrite and a fool. If there was any wisdom in what Nuffink did, it was to confront a fear instead of avoiding him."

He pushed off Toothless to hug Striker's snout, closing his eyes.

Striker couldn't quite come to terms with how he felt, to be trusted by and embraced by a human, his somewhat surrogate sire, so he simply projected all that he felt, an intangible, strange, warm feeling from within, more soothing than the sun, more refreshing than a gentle rain, possibly more fulfilling than lightning. Possibly.

Hiccup sighed into the scaly snout. "Thank you for saving a fool's son."

{Like sire, like offspring.}

He chuckled at that. "I suppose so."

{This feels good, but I suppose I shouldn't get too used to it, or I'll become soft like Toothless.}

Toothless growled at that. "Striker!" Hiccup chided.

{You're right, I take that back. I really do not want to start a fight with Toothless. I would feel bad about killing him.}

The growling intensified.

Hiccup waved off his dragon with a chuckle. "Alright, let's all go back to bed." He turned back to Striker. "And I'm sorry it took me so long to get around to," he rubbed the snout, "this."

{Regret nothing, Firefly, for it was wise to wait until now to approach me. I was forced to learn something important during that fun little fight with those invading land-striders, when I had to cooperate with other dragons and even listen to Confident as if my life depended on it. For years, I attacked others because I was angry, and I was angry because I attacked others. Knowing this made me frustrated, which made me angry. However, I learned one small thing that changed everything about how I look at life, one small fact to accept that allowed me to control myself, even in the midst of a thunderstorm.}

Hiccup raised his eyebrows. "Oh? And what was that?"

The sky flashed white from a lightning bolt. Hiccup jumped, but seeing he was unharmed, he forced himself to touch the snout again.

Striker fixed his eyes on Hiccup's. {I'm always angry.}

With that, he gave Hiccup a light shove to lean on Toothless' snout, then he took a step back and flared his wings wide, flicking the wingtips at each other with bright, loud sparks jumping the gap, sending Nunffink into squealing laughter. He then spun around and took off back to his cave at the top of the cliff.

"I think I just felt a shiver run down my spine," Hiccup muttered as he climbed up onto Toothless.


A/N 2.0
First, thank you Deadly Bagel for noting how awkward it was for everyone to ignore Hiccup saying, "I know how to fix Frost btw," so I fixed that.

Also, I used to be a few chapters ahead of my posting schedule, but when I go a few weeks without writing new content, the predictable happens (e.g. ^^). Gimme an extra week to post the next chapter so I can get caught up again. I figure this is as good a spot as any, no dangling cliffhangers but plenty of things to look forward to, like how we're gonna "fix" Frost, and what's gonna happen with that one ship of defecting crewmen who came back to bury their dead (and maybe even receive some dragon training), and how in Thor's name did Grimmel become a dragon whisperer in cahoots with the Deathgrippers in the first place... Stuff like that.